Your Right to Know

Ohio prison officials, forced to revamp the lethal-injection process for the third time since
resuming executions in 1999, are sorting out which drug or drug combination is best.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction isn’t talking about it at this point. But
officials indicated in a federal court filing on Monday that the switch to a new execution protocol
will be announced by Oct. 4 because the supply of the drug currently used, pentobarbital, runs out
next month.

Ohio and other states have found it a challenge to find a drug, or drug combination, that kills
quickly, painlessly and without complications, that passes legal muster and that is available.

Ohio’s current rules allow for the first-ever intramuscular injection of a lethal dose of drugs.
Prison officials tweaked the protocol in March 2011 to allow hydromorphone, an opiate, and
midazolam, a sedative, to be injected directly into muscles in the upper arm, thigh or buttocks.
The combination has never been tried in the U.S. All 51 executions in Ohio since 1999 have been
done intravenously.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.,
said he thinks Ohio may lean toward the injection. But he said that could be a questionable
choice.

“With intramuscular injections, there can be reactions to it, and it’s unknown how long it takes
to get into the system after being injected,” he said. “All of this is unknown.

“Going forward on what’s available rather than what might be the best consensus according to
medical experts may not be the best policy.”

Ohio is in the same boat as several other states, including Missouri, which yesterday got the
go-ahead from the courts to conduct two upcoming executions using propofol, an anesthetic best
known as the drug that caused pop star Michael Jackson’s overdose death. Arkansas, Kentucky and
Texas are also dealing with lethal-drug issues.

An order Monday by U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost said the state will adopt the new
procedures in time for the Nov. 14 execution of Ronald Phillips, a Summit County man who confessed
that he raped, beat and killed the 3-year-old daughter of his girlfriend.

The state’s supply of pentobarbital will run out at the end of September, after the scheduled
Sept. 25 execution of Harry D. Mitts Jr. of Cuyahoga County. Some drug manufacturers are forbidding
distributors to sell pentobarbital to states that use it for executions.

The debate about lethal-injection protocol — much of it fought out in Frost’s court — resulted
in the postponement of several executions two years ago.

Ohio Public Defender Tim Young’s office declined to comment on the change until specifics of the
new protocol are known.